Latham starts race in poll position, give or take a survey

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John Howard starts this election from behind, according to the major polls.

The Herald Poll, by ACNielsen, puts the Labor Party ahead at 53 per cent versus 47 per cent in two-party terms. The Australian's Newspoll puts it at 54-46, while Roy Morgan points to a potential landslide to Labor, with the ALP ahead 55.5 to 44.5.

Assuming a uniform swing, this suggests Labor would have won an election held in the past few weeks with a majority of between 20 and 40 seats.

The only poll that paints a different picture is the OmniTalk poll, taken for News Limited's tabloid papers three weeks ago, which suggests a landslide the other way, with the Government ahead 54-46 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.

A poll by Nexus taken in the last week in five capital cities suggests that Labor's primary vote is slightly ahead of the Coalition; 45 to 43 per cent.

So which poll is accurate? We won't know until election day. But the ACNielsen poll was the most accurate at the 2001 election, closely followed by Newspoll. Before the last election the Morgan poll suffered the embarrassment of predicting a Labor landslide. Its pollster, Gary Morgan, explained this by saying people had changed their mind in the last week, a phenomenon that was not apparent in other polls.

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Although they differ slightly, the three major regular polls have agreed about the trends in support over the past year; a clear lead to Labor in the first part of this year, followed by a few months where the Government clawed back support, and then Labor regaining the lead in the past month.

All these polls are nationwide snapshots of voting intentions, but voting trends are never uniform across the country.

A state-by-state breakdown suggests that Queensland and Victoria are the best states for Labor, while Western Australia and South Australia are the most favourable for the Coalition.

Newspoll's last survey of marginal seats, polled between April and June, gave Labor a 52-48 lead.

A poll taken in the seat of Eden-Monaro, which has always been won by the governing party, found the result would be determined by Greens preferences. It found Liberal support at 46 per cent, Labor on 40 per cent, and Greens on 8 per cent. A small sample poll taken in the marginal Liberal-held seat of Parramatta showed a 4 per cent swing against him, more than enough to lose the seat.

In demographic terms, the latest ACNielsen poll shows support for Labor is strongest in the 25-39 age group. In all other age groups, the two party vote is split almost down the middle. Predictably, support for the Greens is strongest among the young and declines with the age of the voter.

A significant difference in voting patterns from the last election is that primary support for both major parties is stronger than it was three years ago.

This appears to be because of the demise of two of the minor parties - One Nation, support for which barely registers on the pollsters' radar, and the Democrats, whose vote seems to have plummeted since the last election.

The other significant change is the rise of the Greens. The ACNielsen poll has consistently shown support for the Greens around 7 to 9 per cent.

Labor will depend on a strong flow of preferences from the Greens to stand a chance of being elected.

Of course, opinion polls only measure the electorate's mood at the time they are taken. They cannot predict what will happen on election day, nor what will happen during the campaign to influence people's votes.

In 2001, Kim Beazley gained a swing of about 4 per cent during the campaign. But because he started well behind, it was not enough to win.

In 1998, Labor started ahead, 51-49, and ended that way. It failed to win the election despite more people voting for it because the Coalition won marginal seats.

Unlike the last election, John Howard will need to out-campaign his opponent if he is to retain government.